Tag Archives: elephant sketch in watercolor

New Elephant Field Work by Alison Nicholls

Yesterday I got back from my latest trip to South Africa and Botswana, where I had a number of great elephant sightings. One memorable morning included a herd of 40 elephants who spent time carefully touching and smelling the bones of a dead elephant cow (more about that coming soon).

Elephants Browsing in the Bush, watercolor Field Sketch by Alison Nicholls ©2016

This new sketch shows a more muted palette of colors than usual, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I decided to use more grays, usually mixed from 3 primary colors. This piece started with a Naples yellow wash, which can still be seen on the elephants, so I mixed the background gray from the same yellow plus alizarin crimson and ultramarine blue. (I never use black and white to make gray. In fact I never use black at all and just removed it from my field box. I use white occasionally, usually with cerulean blue to get a subtle sky blue.)

Using the gray to paint the negative shapes around the elephant made them really stand out, and I finished off the piece with same mixture but with more crimson added to create a lovely subtle brown. I used my rigger brush to pull some of this brown out in the foreground as sticks, and also used it to emphasize some of the features on the main elephant.

I think another reason for my muted palette is the severe drought which has affected most of southern Africa, leaving bare, parched earth devoid of vegetation. Many grazers and browsers are struggling from lack of food, and their poor condition leads to fairly easy pickings for many predators. Elephants are able to strip trees of their bark, dig up tree roots and even eat unpalatable-looking sticks and thorns, but their search for food can be hugely destructive.

I hope this year’s rains will be slow, steady and long lasting, so the vegetation can recover. On my next visit I hope to be painting with more greens – which also look great with grays and yellows.

Until next time…enjoy the elephants.
Alison

www.ArtInspiredbyAfrica.com

Sketching in Africa!

During my sketching trip to Botswana and South Africa I will be trying out some new painting surfaces, although I’ll still be using my trusty watercolor sketchbooks by Holbein. (Yes, the 14×11″ size sketchbook with the incredibly catchy and colorful name: Multi-Drawing Book 5F. I suppose the workhorse-like name and plain cover might help prevent me from spiraling dizzily out of control as I happily sketch my way through the African bush!)

Anyway…back to the new surfaces…one of which is Claybord (made by Ampersand). It is described as the ultimate multimedia panel, with an ultra smooth clay surface that is very absorbent. As you might guess from the name, you can scrape through a painted area to expose the bright white ultra-smooth clay surface. Now this goes against everything I have ever done (as a watercolorist you learn to retain the whites in your paintings rather than add them at the end) so I’m not sure scraping will feature heavily in my use of Claybord, but we’ll see. I am taking half a dozen 5×7” panels. If they were lightweight, I would take larger sizes, but they’re not, so the smaller panels will have to do for now. The surface is bright white and almost texture-free. It is good for detail but won’t hold washes. But pencil and pen will look wonderful on it so maybe I’ll try those. My usual extremely pale sketches are very difficult to photograph in the bush, which is why I hardly ever show you the progression of my sketches. So I’ve been thinking that a softer pencil might be the answer. Maybe Claybord can be part of the answer too.

The pieces of square handmade paper are my next experiment. Although they look like watercolor paper, they act a little too much like blotting paper when a wash is added, soaking up the color and showing all the brushmarks, so once again I think simple lines might be the answer. I’ve had these pieces of paper so long I can’t remember anything about them, except that I got them at New York Central Art Supply, a fantastic art store in New York City, which, sadly, will soon be closing. Like Doctor Who’s tardis, it is tiny from the outside but seems to miraculously hold everything I ever need. It is such a shame it will soon be gone.

Elephant sketch by Alison Nicholls ©2015

Speaking of simple lines, I’m also going to be doing more sketches directly in watercolor, like this one from the 2015 Africa Geographic Art Safari. I used a rigger brush for these, and was painting while it was raining, which is why this looks such a mess. (Bookings are now open for my 2017 Art Safari on the edge of Kruger National Park in South Africa.)

So watch out for my latest exploits and sketches from Africa – coming soon!
Alison

www.ArtInspiredbyAfrica.com

African Wildlife Sketch #15 – Kwando Lagoon by Alison Nicholls

Kwando Lagoon is an amazing place to be. Not only is there a wonderful view from the bar, the dining table and even your bed, but that view is liberally sprinkled with elephants. I stopped to count them one morning, and there were more than 60 elephants visible from just 1 of the large mesh windows in our huge, beautiful, room. Add to that the vocal pod of hippos, the fruit bats hanging in a tree, and the numerous birds, and it was barely even necessary to go out on a game drive. On a couple of occasions it was impossible to leave our room because of the elephants munching on vegetation around us. Photos of that will follow soon, but in the meantime, enjoy this view from the bar, and think about a visit!

Kwando Lagoon with elephants field sketch byAlison Nicholls

All my field sketches, are created in Africa directly from life, or sketched back at camp purely from my memory of sightings. They are completely finished in Africa and I use no photos or video reference at any time in their creation. It is always tempting to add finishing touches back in the studio, but I avoid this to ensure that my field sketches really are field sketches.

This Original Field Sketch is sold but Limited Edition Giclées are also available, priced at US$120 each. Only 10 copies are available, printed using archival inks on watercolor paper, 14×11″, all signed and numbered by me.

A donation will be made to African conservation from every sale.

Until Nov 22, I will be sharing 1 of my new African field sketches every day. The new sketches are shown to my newsletter readers a full day before they are shown here. Click here to Join my Mailing List and see the sketches as soon as they are released, or see them here 1 day later.

Wherever and whenever you see them, I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed creating them.
Tomorrow’s sketch is of elephants at Kwando Lagoon.
Until then…
Alison
www.ArtInspiredbyAfrica.com

African Wildlife Sketch #12 – Bull Elephant Drinking (Sold) by Alison Nicholls

From behind, an elephant can appear to be just a very large, fairly indistinct, object because most of the details – trunk, ears, tusks etc – are at the front end of the elephant. To indicate that this is a sketch of a bull elephant, I needed to include just a glimpse of the trunk, tusk and ears, but this was a difficult angle to sketch, because the elephant constantly lowered and raised his trunk to drink. As I began the sketch I was hoping he was planning to drink for at least a couple of minutes, so I could finish the sketch. Luckily for me, he obliged. I used the bold color scheme to emphasize the bulk of the bull elephant by first painting around him, then adding touches of color on the elephant to highlight the important details of his tail, spine, trunk and tusk. I think the combination was very successful!

Bull Drinking field sketch (Sold) by Alison Nicholls

This Original Field Sketch is Sold, but Limited Edition Giclées are also available, priced at US$120 each. Only 10 copies are available, printed using archival inks on watercolor paper, 14×11″, all signed and numbered by me.

A donation will be made to African conservation from every sale.

Wherever and whenever you see them, I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed creating them.
Tomorrow’s sketch is of a 2 cheetahs preparing for a hunt..
Until then…
Alison
www.ArtInspiredbyAfrica.com

African Field Sketch #2: Elephant Drinking by Alison Nicholls

Sketching a drinking elephant from this angle can be difficult, as you can see straight into the elephant’s mouth, and there is some serious foreshortening on the trunk. But I decided to go ahead, and I thought the 2nd elephant, facing the opposite direction, made this an interesting composition. The browns and greens reflect the colors of the water in the muddy waterhole, and there is always a blacksmith lapwing (plover) present at every waterhole, so I added him too.

Drinking Field Sketch by Alison Nicholls

This Original Field Sketch is watercolor & pencil on watercolor paper, 11×14″, priced at US$300. Limited Edition Giclées are also available, priced at US$120 each. Only 10 copies are available, printed using archival inks on watercolor paper, 11×14″, all signed and numbered by me.

A donation will be made to African conservation from every sale.

Wherever and whenever you see them, I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed creating them.
Tomorrow you will see Painted Dogs (African wild dogs)!
Take care
Alison
www.ArtInspiredbyAfrica.com